


Like Home

by Raphiael



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, Parent-Child Relationship, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:40:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphiael/pseuds/Raphiael
Summary: Eirika and Tana, in the war & after.





	Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> Nagamas gift for foxglovens! It's very late and I apologize, but the sort of hazy in-and-out style ended up being a bit of a challenge. I hope you enjoy it!

"This was meant to be a relaxing trip," Eirika sighs. But despite the tired edge in her voice, there's more fondness than fatigue as she rests her head on Tana's shoulder and watches their daughter raise her little practice spear once again for a twirl.

It's been a week since they arrived in Renais, and Fadia has not run out of energy yet. It's the first time she's met her uncle properly: the man Eirika knows her twin is, not a ragged king fresh from a trip to Grado.

As for the twins, they've shared their rule evenly, Eirika in Renais while Ephraim is in Grado, Eirika in Frelia while Ephraim is at home. But just for now, just for a short while, the four of them are all together. Her brother, her wife, her daughter, all at her side. It feels, at last, like home.

"Mama, Mother, look— " And Fadia does the same little spin Ephraim had taught her for the fourteenth time, this time her grin mirroring her uncle's so closely that Eirika feels her chest clench.

"I'm plenty relaxed," Tana says, beaming in their daughter's direction before the little girl runs back out to learn something new. And then, her smile is all Eirika's, and Eirika's is all hers.

* * *

In the darkest days of the war, Eirika had never imagined they'd all end up like this. She remembers spending that long, terrible first night in Rausten: her homeland's stone gone, her bracelet dark and useless on her wrist. Ephraim said weep, if you can, as if somehow it were her duty. But when at last she was alone, she found herself dry and empty, staring at the ceiling and trying to pinpoint the exact moment where they, where _she_ , had gone wrong.

She'd expected it to be Ephraim to visit her first visitor. Instead it was Tana who waited on the other side of the door, a plate of hot food in her hands, but the usual smile absent from her features.

"We missed you at dinner."

The smell turned Eirika's stomach. "I simply wasn't hungry."

" _I_ missed you," Tana said instead, and pushed her way into the room before Eirika could even think to turn her away.

* * *

Renais' trees are much better for climbing than Frelia's. Fadia learns quickly how high she can climb before Eirika calls her back down, nervous at the way the branches creak beneath her feet. (Uncle Ephraim let me go higher, she swears, and Eirika doesn't for a moment think she's fibbing.)

"You don't have to worry so much," Tana says later, as they take tea together. The afternoon sun catches the blue of her eyes and the warmth of her cheeks, already brought out by the time in the late spring sun. (In Frelia's highest summer, she gets a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and Eirika wonders if it might come sooner here, just as the flowers come into bloom here while Frelia is still coated in ice.)

"But I do," Eirika counters. And she knows Tana understands the balance she tries to tread, the way her heart and her instinct split. She wants Fadia to grow without even a whisper of warfare, to think of her lessons with her uncle as play and nothing more, to see Jehanna and Rausten and even, especially, Grado only ever as friends. She wants the worst hurt Fadia ever suffers to be bruised knees and skinned palms.

But should Renais fall again, should the worst ever happen, she wants her daughter tall and fearless, unconquerable as she'd ached to be, to somehow be strong enough to stop the nightmares before they ever started—

"Eirika."

Tana's hands are warm and tight on her own. Eirika squeezes back as soon as she realizes, slowing her breathing, focusing again on the soft blue of Tana's gaze and the way the calluses on their fingers match.

"I know," Eirika says. "I'm trying."

"That's enough," Tana answers. "More than enough."

* * *

Tana's visit that night had been the first of many. She hadn't pried or pushed, the way Eirika had expected. Nor had she insisted that grief or horror be forgotten for the moment, as Eirika had tried to expect of herself. They spoke of broken friendships and shattered trust only when Eirika opened the conversation to such topics, but in the spaces between, it was never as if either of them had forgotten.

"Should I have known?" Eirika asked, once, long after what they'd found of Lyon after the war was buried.

Tana never said "of course not," the way Eirika always imagined she might if asked. Nor did she stay silent the way Ephraim often did before changing the subject (his own private way of saying yes, she knew, of both of them.)

"I don't know," Tana said instead. And her hands were so warm again in Eirika's, just as they'd been that first night, fingers intertwined and gaze never wavering. "I never knew him, after all. But... what happened, it wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it, though— "

" _Never_."

And who would know better than Tana? Eirika had only realized it in that moment: Tana, who'd faced war and bloodshed and more, just as she had, who'd flown into battle at the first whispers of horrors, who'd railed inside that dank dungeon where Eirika had first found her again after losing her home. She didn't know what to say, so she'd just raised Tana's fingers to her lips.

(The specifics of who kissed whom first were hazy against the sharp, clear memory of that word: _never_. Nothing mattered as much as _never_.)

* * *

Fadia doesn't know much about the war. It's not a secret by any means; she knows the broad strokes, the basic facts.

"If she asks," Eirika answers when Tana asks. "I'll never keep anything she needs from her."

But for now, Fadia is too young for many questions like that. She's happy to climb the same trees Eirika remembers climbing once, to have her uncle lift and spin her as her grandfather might have, to feast on Renais' wild strawberries and crisp apples until her stomach aches.

And she's happiest held between Eirika and Tana, one hand for each of them.

"Mama, will you teach me to fly a pegasus?" "Mother, can I learn to fence like you next?"

Eirika looks to Tana, who offers a little nod. Their daughter, sword in hand. It makes her ache, almost, but not as it used to. It's a choice, after all.

"If that's what you'd like," Eirika answers, and Tana echoes the thought.

"Provided you take your other lessons seriously, of course— "

Fadia wiggles in protest and complains until bedtime, but it's the sort of complaint Eirika can happily laugh off.

And when it's only her and Tana again, side by side beneath the covers, she's still smiling. It _does_ feel like home.


End file.
